Showing 308 results

Following his election as Presiding Bishop in 1985, Edmond Browning created the Deputy for Anglican Relationships (also known as Anglican Relations and Anglican Affairs). The office was part of the Senior Executive Group of the Presiding Bishop’s staff at Church Center, and its purpose was “to provide consultative and coordinative support” to the Presiding Bishop in affairs dealing with the Anglican Communion. The Rev. Charles Cesaretti was the first to be appointed to the position in January of 1986. The Rev. J. Patrick Mauney took over the office in January of 1989.

The Deputy acted as liaison to other members of the Anglican Communion and as a close advisor to the Presiding Bishop on Anglican matters, traveling to Anglican church conferences and meeting with representatives from the global Anglican Communion. As such, the Deputy was responsible for keeping abreast of world events and international crises and advising the leaders of The Episcopal Church on framing the Church’s responses.

Following budget cuts within The Episcopal Church in 1991, the position of Deputy for Anglican Relations was not renewed and much of the work was transferred to the Partnerships Office.

The Department of Finance was centered in the office of the Treasurer (a continuation of the office with the DFMS). As an administrative unit, it was a creation of the National Council in 1919, and continued until 1965 when the Executive Council reorganized. The department was charged with administering funds received by the National Council and the expenditure of funds as authorized by General Convention and the Council. It was in this capacity that the department worked with the foreign missions.

The Department of Christian Education had its roots in the General Board of Religious Education, which was established canonically in 1910 by the General Convention for the purpose of religious instruction. As part of its efforts, it trained Sunday School teachers, developed religious curricula, organized conferences, and maintained summer schools and campus ministries.

In 1919, the General Board of Religious Education became the Department of Religious Education; instead of reporting to the General Convention, the new department now reported to the Presiding Bishop and National Council. In 1938 its name was changed to the Department of Christian Education. In 1942, the department was brought under the umbrella of the newly formed Home Department, resulting in its brief re-designation as the Division of Christian Education. It was again made a separate department in 1947.

As a result of the Executive Council’s reorganization in 1968, the Department of Christian Education was integrated into the Section I (Service to Dioceses) program group alongside the Home Department, General Division of Research and Field Study, and General Division of Women’s Work with their functions being combined and streamlined to improve organizational flexibility. From 1970 to 1973, there was no staff officer in charge of religious education. The work was briefly carried out thereafter under the direction of a Program Group on Education, followed by an Education Committee headed by an Educational Officer of Executive Council, until the Office of Religious Education was established. Today, educational responsibilities are carried out by different formation ministries within The Episcopal Church.

Daniel Corrigan was born October 25, 1900 in Rochester, Michigan. He received his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1925 from Nashotah House in Wisconsin, and in May of 1925 he was ordained a priest. Subsequently, Corrigan received a Master of Sacred Theology degree in 1943 and a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1955, also from Nashotah House.

Upon his ordination in 1925, Corrigan served as rector of various churches until 1958, when he made history in the Episcopal Church for simultaneously being elected Bishop of Quincy (Illinois) and Suffragan Bishop of Colorado. He accepted the latter appointment and was consecrated on May 1, 1958. Just two years later, in 1960, he resigned the Colorado ministry and began employment as director of the Home Department of the National (Executive) Council. As a result of his professional involvement in issues of social justice, he became active in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

Upon his resignation from the Home Department in 1968 Corrigan became first a minister to Amherst College in Massachusetts and then dean of Bexley Hall in Rochester, New York. While at Bexley Hall, Corrigan became active in the anti-Vietnam War movement. The culmination of this activity came during the interfaith Mass for Peace held on the steps of the Pentagon where many participants in this service, including Corrigan, were arrested.

In 1974, during his retirement, Corrigan participated in the irregular ordination of 11 women to the priesthood in Philadelphia. Along with four other bishops, Corrigan ordained these women, an act which broke with the tradition and interpretation of the Canons of the Church at that time.

Corrigan died on September 21, 1994.

The Conference on the Religious Life (CORL) is an affiliation of religious orders in the Anglican Communion established in 1949 to spread knowledge about the religious life, present a united voice to the Church on issues, and as consultants to bishops or new communities in formation. By 1982, the Conference represented 24 member communities and 75 houses in the United States, Canada, West Indies, and Liberia. The Conference's Advisory Council served as its plenary body until 1986, when this role was assumed by the Superior's Council. In 2001, at the Annual Leaders’ Meeting in Racine, WI, the operating name of the conference was changed from the Conference on the Religious Life (CORL) to the Conference of Anglican Religious Orders in the Americas (CAROA), the name under which it operates today.

Due to the initial success of the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief (PBFWR) in the 1940s, the scope of the program was expanded over the course of 1949 and 1950. At the request of the Presiding Bishop, National Council expanded the purview of the PBFWR to encompass not only world relief, but also “church cooperation,” generally expanding the scope of its grant-funded projects and specifically enabling it to finance the costs of The Episcopal Church’s participation in the World Council of Churches. Consequently, the Presiding Bishop’s Committee on World Relief and Church Cooperation was authorized in April 1950 to make appropriations within the terms of the budget item for world relief and church cooperation.

The Presiding Bishop's Committee on World Relief and Church Cooperation formulated policy and approved grants and appropriations; however, formal grant criteria were not introduced until the 1970s. The Department of Christian Social Relations administered the operation of approved programs, which included humanitarian efforts, particularly aid to refugees, parish development, and ecumenical programs. At the February 1959 National Council meeting, it was resolved that the Committee on World Relief and Church Cooperation be renamed the Committee on World Relief and Inter-Church Aid.

One year later, in February 1960, the Committee on World Relief and Inter-Church Aid recommended to the National Council that the operational activities of the Committee become a Division of World Relief and Inter-Church Aid within the structure of the Department of Christian Social Relations.

In 1968, as the Executive Council sought to develop more efficient working structures, the Department of Christian Social Relations was dissolved, effectively ending the work of the Committee on World Relief and Inter-Church Aid.